Two Astonishingly Large Beetles, Both Members of the Rhinoceros Beetle Family.

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cr_wildlife

cr_wildlife

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The first image shows a Hercules Beetle, the largest beetle in the world, with males (shown here) being up to 3.3 inches in length. Hercules beetles use their horns to joust with other males over the rights to mate with a female. The second images shows an Elephant Beetle, so named because its horn is supposed to look like an elephant's trunk. These beetles are amongst the strongest animals in the world, capable of carrying at least 100 times their body weight. Females lack the horns seen on these males. To my mind somewhat remarkably. both of beetles are capable of flying, although they are somewhat slow and clumsy in fight. The larvae of these beetles are correspondingly large and live in and eat dead wood. Adults eat sap and fruit. Both of these are set up images in which we moved the beetles to the perches, took our photos, and then place them back where they were found. Flash was used on the second image.
Nikon Z9, Nikon Z 105mm MC f/2.8 VR S, 1/100 second @f/11, ISO 2500 for both images.

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Butlerkid said:
Superb imagery! I always appreciate the information you provide with your images.
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Thanks so much, Karen. I try to be honest with what was done to get the image(s), I like to include the camera settings, and I try to make the images a bit more interesting with some background. I am always glad to hear that someone is reading the captions!
 
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cr_wildlife said:
The first image shows a Hercules Beetle, the largest beetle in the world, with males (shown here) being up to 3.3 inches in length. Hercules beetles use their horns to joust with other males over the rights to mate with a female. The second images shows an Elephant Beetle, so named because its horn is supposed to look like an elephant's trunk. These beetles are amongst the strongest animals in the world, capable of carrying at least 100 times their body weight. Females lack the horns seen on these males. To my mind somewhat remarkably. both of beetles are capable of flying, although they are somewhat slow and clumsy in fight. The larvae of these beetles are correspondingly large and live in and eat dead wood. Adults eat sap and fruit. Both of these are set up images in which we moved the beetles to the perches, took our photos, and then place them back where they were found. Flash was used on the second image.
Nikon Z9, Nikon Z 105mm MC f/2.8 VR S, 1/100 second @f/11, ISO 2500 for both images.

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Great images! Very interesting!
 
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